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Dead Space
Dead Space Dead Space is a third-person action video game, developed by EA Redwood Shores for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows. It was released on October 14, 2008 on the consoles and October 20 for Windows.The player takes on the role of an engineer named Isaac Clarke, who battles a polymorphic alien species called the 'Necromorphs' on board a stricken interstellar mining ship. Gameplay The players must fight their way through various levels of a stricken mining ship, which has been infested with an alien species known as the 'Necromorphs'. The game features an 'over the shoulder' third-person perspective,2 similar to games such as Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War. The interface does not feature a traditional head-up display. Instead, information is relayed to the player via lights and translucent screens which hover over Isaac's weapons and armor.3 There are weightless and decompressed environments, which Isaac can navigate using a pressurized suit equipped with magnetic boots. Some levels will even lead out onto the surface of the ship's hull. Floating debris will present a hazard, and Isaac can lose his footing and simply float off into space.3 In keeping with Isaac's profession as an engineer rather than a soldier, weapons in the game are mostly improvised, and consist of an array of bolt cutters, stasis fields and rudimentary energy weapons.3 Combat in the game is complicated by the fact that Necromorphs are not simply rendered 'dead' after a certain number of rounds have been fired at them. Rather, they must be dismembered a certain way to be dead, but they can adopt new stances and tactics, and even sprout new limbs, based upon where they have been wounded. 4 The game's Executive Producer, Glen Schofield, has said that 'the primary theme of Dead Space is dismemberment',3 and early previews of the game have noted the high levels of gore Plot Set in the distant future, Dead Space revolves around Isaac Clarke, a space engineer who works for the Concordance Extraction Corporation (C.E.C.), a company that operates giant mining ships throughout the galaxy. His company receives a distress call from the USG Ishimura, a “Planet Cracker” class ship that destroys planets in order to extract valuable ore. Assuming that a mechanical failure is the only problem, Isaac and four other C.E.C employees set out on the USG Kellion to rendezvous with the Ishimura. Shortly after crash landing on the Ishimura flight deck, they discover that the ship has been overrun by Necromorphs, a hostile alien race that can only reproduce using human corpses as a medium. As Isaac progresses through the Ishimura, he finds his girlfriend, Nicole alive and well, though behaving strangely, repeatedly asking Isaac to "make us whole again.". Isaac eventually runs into Dr. Kyne, who reveals the existence of the Hive Mind, the controlling force of the necromorphs, and pleads with Isaac to help him return the marker to the planet. The marker had contained the Hive Mind, and was freed when the Marker was removed and the planet cracked open. Kendra is revealed to be a covert agent and betrays Isaac, taking the marker with her, killing Dr. Kyne in the process. The marker, or The Red Marker, as its referred to in the game, is revealed to be a man-made copy of an actual alien artifact, a similar Black Marker, that was discovered by the figurehead of Unitology, Michael Altman. While it is unclear what the exact nature of the artifact is, it produces an effect that neutralizes Necromorphs, by projecting a "dead space," around it which halts all tissue necrosis. It is purportedly engraved with the secrets of eternal life, as well as a DNA sample of an alien race. After the Red Marker was deemed unstable, it was isolated on the planet before being discovered by an illegal mining operation, and freed by the Ishimura. Eventually Isaac meets up with Nicole again and they override the shuttle Kendra escaped on. Nicole and Isaac use the shuttle to return the marker to the planet. After a lengthy delivery, they finally set the marker down and expect everything to be returned to normal. However, Kendra appears and tells Isaac that Nicole has been dead the entire time, and his meetings with her were not real, that she has been a figment created by the Red Marker. The video with Nicole from the beginning of the game, and it shows that the end had been cut off, and Nicole had injected herself with some sort of poison at the end of the video. Isaac realizes he has been hallucinating this entire time and Kendra tries to escape with the marker. As Isaac attempts to stop her, she is killed by a massive Necromorph known as the "Hive Mind". The Hive Mind attacks Isaac, but he eventually defeats it. He escapes the planet as it struck by an enormous asteroid, and switches off the original message from Nicole. Moments later he is attacked by the Necromorph version of Nicole, and his fate is left unknown. Graphic novelist Warren Ellis, through his Bad Signal mailing list, writes on August 7, 2008: "I got released from an NDA (Non-disclosure Agreement) the other day, so I can finally say that I wrote a bunch of the groundwork, backstory and structure on the forthcoming EA videogame DEAD SPACE...I believe there was at least one other writer on the project, but I'm sure there's some of me in there somewhere." Backstory The events leading up to Dead Space are described in a series of comics, which are publicly available in both print and video forms. Written by Antony Johnston and illustrated by Ben Templesmith, the comics reveal that prior to the events of Dead Space, miners on the colony planet Aegis 7 discovered a mysterious "artifact." Over a period of five weeks, however, unusual and violent occurrences befell the Aegis 7 colony, although such occurrences did not stop the Ishimura from retrieving the artifact for examination on Earth. The comics also show the connection between the artifact and the church of Unitology, a widespread religion in the game's universe. A film prequel, titled Dead Space: Downfall, details how the Necromorph infection spread to the Ishimura. The film was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on October 31, 2008. Further backstory was provided through the website No Known Survivors which provides an insight into other events leading the infection of the Ishimura. Category:Browse